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For
more than six decades, modern Germany’s taboo against rising
right-wing populism held strong. But now it is broken.

For
all that time, no party to the right of the Christian Democrats and
their Christian Social Union allies was able to establish itself in
German politics. But the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, soon will
manage to enter the country’s parliaments. Not because it is so
much more forceful than all the previous failed attempts, but because
the conditions for a right-wing populist movement have not been this
favorable.

The
upheaval that the German
republic faces in the current refugee
crisis very possibly constitutes the most far-reaching change in its
history.

On
one hand it has mobilized an unforeseen readiness by Germans to help
the refugees, along with an unprejudiced openness to something new.
At the same time is has awakened fears about the future, in addition
to uncertainty and aggression. Any party that takes up and
exacerbates this mood will find a place in the political structure.

If
it were simply a matter of the AfD, there might not be particular
reason to worry. But not only in the streets and on the Internet, but
all the way to editorial columns of the established media, a rising
anger is being voiced against impositions brought by the crisis —
and against the chancellor who is held responsible for them.

The
AfD is only the most visible symptom of an evolving social
atmosphere. Not even the modern historical taboo can assert itself
against this mood. The increasing distance in time to National
Socialism has contributed. Also, the fact that today one can be a
right-wing populist without having to be an anti-Semite or
revisionist has opened political space to the right of traditional
conservatives.

The
dissolving historical taboo along with a perfect opportunity have
blunted traditional weapons of established German politics for
dealing with right-wing populism.

Bavarian
state premier Horst Seehofer, head of the center-right CSU, and Vice
Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, head of the center-left Social Democrats,
often take up populist slogans while simultaneously stigmatizing
populists. But now that only makes the AfD stronger. The two leaders
should give up their old tactic, otherwise Germany could soon end up
there where France is already helplessly squirming — in the trap
of modern right-wing populism.

If
the AfD had been permitted to design a perfect start to the new year,
it would have looked something like this: mass sexual assaults on
women by migrants of Arab origin, an overwhelmed police force, aghast
politicians hiding their helplessness with declarations of
decisiveness, and a media that only belatedly reported on the
attacks. Looking back someday on how right-wing populism was able to
establish itself as a political force in modern Germany, the events
at the beginning of 2016 will be seen as crucial.

The
AfD is the only party that voiced an aggressive challenge to the new
German policy on refugees right from the start. It wasn’t
difficult. Deep-seated reservations regarding Islam, fantasies of
sealing off the nation and enthusiasm for authoritarian shows of
power belong to the party’s basic mental and political outlook.

The
AfD sees migrants as a danger to German culture and prosperity, and
considers the political protagonists to be an unscrupulous cartel.
With this perspective, the party is not approved of by a majority of
society. But in a growing segment of the population that rejects
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, nearly 10 percent are
ready to join the right-wing populists.

Moreover,
journalists grown reactionary with increasing age no longer retreat
when they are accused of arguing exactly like the AfD. They too
create a mental and moral ramp into the center of society for the
populists.

All
forecasts agree that in the March elections in Baden-Württemberg and
Rhineland-Palatinate, the AfD will surpass the five-percent threshold
for representation, in Saxony-Anhalt in any case.

Already
weeks ago, the deputy chairman of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, called
the refugee crisis a "gift" for the party. One is normally
pleased to receive gifts, and so it is in this case. Because in the
AfD’s loathing to the mass influx of migrants from a different
culture, in its tirades about failing government and almost-criminal
politicians, there also elation about circumstances that playing into
its hands.

From
its beginnings, the AfD has depended on crisis-ridden times — first
the turbulence on financial markets, then the European currency
crisis.

Back
then, the AfD held southern Europeans responsible for mismanaging
billions of euros in bailout aid, much of it from Germany.

Today
it’s the Arab crisis regions, whose fleeing refugees are seen as a
danger to German prosperity and lifestyles.

In
2013 the party lured its followers with calls to abandon the euro.
Today it demands strict deportation and closing of borders.

But
during the 2013 federal elections, neither scaremongering nor
contempt for the elite allowed the AfD to achieve a breakthrough. A
great majority of Germans saw the financial and euro crises more as
an abstract threat – as if in the cinema.

Today’s
refugee crisis, on the other hand, hits Germans where they live —
in communities, classrooms and soon also on the labor market. In
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s words, it is the "rendezvous
of Germans with globalization." No wonder not everyone is ready to
accept this encounter. Germans’ longing for clear relationships,
for sovereign decisions and national options have been co-opted by
the AfD.

The
fact that right-wing populists have so far not been able to establish
themselves in German federal politics was also due to a mainstream
party, which successfully integrated the political spectrum from the
center to the right edge. But under Chancellor Merkel, the CDU-CSU
gave up that right edge and opened space for competition from a
right-wing populist party.

That
was neither intention nor accident.

Always
when Ms. Merkel was faced with a choice between maintaining tradition
and governmental pragmatism, she voted soberly and non-ideologically
against the conservatives — and her chancellorship descended into a
series of political humiliations. Suddenly her CDU-CSU stood for
equal rights for homosexuals, an end to compulsory military service,
an exit from nuclear power and unconditional rescue of the euro.

Ms.
Merkel didn’t push aside the traditionalists because she had
something against them, but because she couldn’t govern
successfully in a modernizing society. on the basis of their
cherished formulas and emotions.

But
the convictions and cultural imprints that grew outdated during the
Merkel era have not simply disappeared. Instead the refugee crisis is
revitalizing them. The AfD is the radicalized, ugly return of a kind
of conservatism that, in the decades gone by, lost its political
moorings. It is a collection of all those persons for whom Ms.
Merkel’s chancellorship embodies the demise of good old Germany.